Does the US really try to Capture?

Gregory Johnsen, a former Fulbright Fellow in Yemen, is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. Johnsen has written for a variety of publications on Yemen including, among others, Foreign Policy, The American Interest, The Independent, The Boston Globe, and The National. He is the co-founder of Waq al-Waq: Islam and Insurgency in Yemen Blog. In 2009, he was a member of the USAID's conflict assessment team for Yemen.

09 February, 2013

On Thursday, John Brennan, President Obama's nominee to be the new director of the CIA, went before the Senate Intelligence Committee to answer questions.

I watched all three and-a-half hours of the discussion and despite a few moments of genuinely challenging questions I was largely disappointed.

A lot of things from the hearing deserve comment, but today I'll limit myself to just one: the capture or kill option.

According to Brennan's testimony, the Obama administration always prefers to capture and not to kill terrorist suspects.

Relying on the great on-the-ground reporting of Adam Baron, Sen. McCain asks why the US did not try to capture al-Qadhi, who was killed in a drone strike on Nov. 7, 2012.

Unlike many of the drone strikes that take place in Yemen this one did not happen in territory outside the effective control of the Yemeni government, rather this strike took place just a short drive outside of Sanaa and, even more surprisingly, within sight of former president Ali Abdullah Salih's house.

So why, given that al-Qadhi was living openly in his house did the US not seek to capture him?

Killing should indeed be a last resort, not just the most convenient option.